Mafiosi are 'excommunicated', pope says

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Timothysis said:
One doesn’t need to be formally excommunicated to be separated from the Church which is what, after all, excommunicated means. It has been stated many times before that Catholic politicians who vote in favor of laws allowing for abortion or any other subject deemed by the Church to be intrinsically evil have excommunicated themselves through their own actions even though it hasn’t officially been stated by the hierarchy.
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Canon law does mention abortion, or aiding or abetting of, is an excommunicable offense and therefore automatic. Does Canon Law specifically mention Mafiosi or does it just it state any group that is hostile to the Church? If the latter, the group has to be defined as being hostile to the Church, it would seem. But I’m no Canon lawyer, just saying.
 
WilT said:
so, are the Mafioso’s excommunicated as a group, individually, and is it done by word, decree or in writing. Still not clear.
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Valid concern.
WilT said:
I think I got it. Thanks.
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What exactly wasn’t clear before and is now? There are people who do business with Mafiosi and people who do business with them. And people who do business with those people and so forth. I’m sure a lot of employment is involved here. Not that simple to me.
 
ProVobis said:
Canon law does mention abortion, or aiding or abetting of, is an excommunicable offense and therefore automatic. Does Canon Law specifically mention Mafiosi or does it just it state any group that is hostile to the Church? If the latter, the group has to be defined as being hostile to the Church, it would seem. But I’m no Canon lawyer, just saying.
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My brother in law is a canon lawyer, I will ask him.
Yes, I call him Father Brother-In-Law.😃
 
St. Michael the Archangel, defend our Pope and the Church of Jesus Christ!
 
ProVobis said:
But I’m no Canon lawyer, just saying.
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For someone who isn’t a Canon lawyer, you sure do keep “saying’.”

The Church’s authority isn’t limited to the parsing of terms in Canon law. Here we have the pontiff stating that those who participate in the crimes of the mafia are excommunicated but that, apparently, isn’t enough for some. Pope John Paul declared that Archbishop Lefebvre and the sspx bishops were excommunicated and we’ve had 20 years of apologists arguing that it wasn’t true/valid. For myself, I like to call a spade a spade. If Pope Francis states that a particular group, because of their crimes, are excommunicated, then I take it that they are. I don’t understand why there has to be a litany of “yeah, but…” questions. It is what he says. As Brother JR used to say, the pope can excommunicate you if he doesn’t like the color of your toothbrush. Why is this particular situation so hard to grasp?
 
Is anyone else worried that he’s going to end up assassinated? :o I read recently that he’s going off on his own more and refusing the bullet-proof Popemobile, too.

Well, all we can do is pray, I guess. It blows my mind though that the mob still has such power.
 
ProVobis said:
Valid concern.

What exactly wasn’t clear before and is now? There are people who do business with Mafiosi and people who do business with them. And people who do business with those people and so forth. I’m sure a lot of employment is involved here. Not that simple to me.
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Yeah, who qualifies as Mafiaso? The secretaries? The cleaning crew who knows what is going on? The wives who do nothing to stop it? Who does this apply to?

I realize certain actions are automatic excommunications, but then it got muddled when naming a nebulous group, at least to me.
 
What about drug cartels? Shouldn’t members of these violent groups who are catholic also be excommunicated?

The Pope might be going to mexico the end of 2015. Maybe he will address that group then.

I pray that St. Michael and his angels protect Pope Francis.
 
7_Sorrows said:
What about drug cartels? Shouldn’t members of these violent groups who are catholic also be excommunicated?

The Pope might be going to mexico the end of 2015. Maybe he will address that group then.

I pray that St. Michael and his angels protect Pope Francis.
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From Wikipedia:

In 1983, Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the personal approval of Pope John Paul II,[29] issued a Declaration on Masonic Associations, which reiterated the Church’s objections to Freemasonry. The Declaration states:
Code: 
"The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion...." and "...the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association(s) remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden."[29]
It seems to me that if Freemasons are automatically excommunicated as an example of forbidden secret societies, the Mafia and organized Mexican crime rings would certainly qualify under the same logic. The penalty of excommunication is meant to be a warning to avoid the acts that trigger it.

Pope Francis has a style different from any other Pope in my 65 years, but his content is perfectly consistent with all his predecessors back to Peter.
 
So if a group is excommunicated how do you prevent them from coming to church and participating in Mass? They don’t walk around with a badge announcing they are with the mafia or a drug cartel.

It was terrible what happened to this little boy.
Very brave for Pope Francis to make this announcement.
 
Trader said:
From Wikipedia:

In 1983, Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the personal approval of Pope John Paul II,[29] issued a Declaration on Masonic Associations, which reiterated the Church’s objections to Freemasonry. The Declaration states:
Code: 
"The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion...." and "...the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association(s) remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden."[29]
It seems to me that if Freemasons are automatically excommunicated as an example of forbidden secret societies, the Mafia and organized Mexican crime rings would certainly qualify under the same logic. The penalty of excommunication is meant to be a warning to avoid the acts that trigger it.
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Where does it say this? Anyone in grave sin is barred from communion.

BTW, in 1983, we were transitioning to a new code of Canon Law. Maybe FM was addressed in the old 1917 Canon? I know earlier Popes had condemned it.
 
Trader said:
From Wikipedia:

In 1983, Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the personal approval of Pope John Paul II,[29] issued a Declaration on Masonic Associations, which reiterated the Church’s objections to Freemasonry. The Declaration states:
Code: 
"The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion...." and "...the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association(s) remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden."[29]
It seems to me that if Freemasons are automatically excommunicated as an example of forbidden secret societies, the Mafia and organized Mexican crime rings would certainly qualify under the same logic. The penalty of excommunication is meant to be a warning to avoid the acts that trigger it.
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Indeed they are, but according to EWTN, the excommunication had been imposed before.
The Church has imposed the penalty of excommunication on Catholics who become Freemasons. The penalty of excommunication for joining the Masonic Lodge was explicit in the 1917 code of canon law (canon 2335), and it is implicit in the 1983 code (canon 1374).
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Because the revised code of canon law is not explicit on this point, some drew the mistaken conclusion that the Church’s prohibition of Freemasonry had been dropped. As a result of this confusion, shortly before the 1983 code was promulgated, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement indicating that the penalty was still in force. This statement was dated November 26, 1983 and may be found in 13/27 (Nov. 15, 1983), 450.
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ewtn.com/library/answers/camason1.htm
 
7_Sorrows said:
So if a group is excommunicated how do you prevent them from coming to church and participating in Mass? They don’t walk around with a badge announcing they are with the mafia or a drug cartel.
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I don’t think excommunication bars them from coming to Church, but I could be wrong.

But your last sentence is a good point. How do we know these Papal statements are indeed working?
 
I am glad that Pope Francis has done this. That said, I am just wondering if this is an official excommunication or not. I think I read somewhere that it might mean something else.
 
I’ll believe it as soon as it is published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis. No bishop, not even the Pope, legislates or decrees by homily. He can say whatever he wants but it carries no force of law unless it is promulgated in the appropriate way.

Let’s say you are having a dinner party and a federal judge is sitting next to you. He says “I find you guilty of stealing my drink!” are you going to jail? Why not?
 
Here are the offenses for which a latae sententiae excommunication applies:
an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic;[6]
a person who throws away the consecrated Eucharistic species or takes and retains them for a sacrilegious purpose;[7]
a person who uses physical force against the Pope;[8]
a priest who uses confession as a pretext to solicit the penitent to break the commandment against adultery;[9]
a bishop who ordains someone a bishop without a papal mandate, and the person who receives the ordination from him;[10]
a confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal of confession;[11]
a person who procures a completed abortion;[12]
accomplices without whose assistance a violation of a law prescribing latae sententiae excommunication would not have been committed.
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Now I don’t see any one in particular that “all Mafiosi” are guilty of. Therefore we are not dealing with a latae sententiae excommunication. And I would be very interested to see your argument that a bishop’s homily constitutes an ecclesiastical tribunal which is the necessary precedent for a ferendae sententiae excommunication.
 
7_Sorrows said:
So if a group is excommunicated how do you prevent them from coming to church and participating in Mass? They don’t walk around with a badge announcing they are with the mafia or a drug cartel.
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A person who is excommunicated is still obligated to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. They may not participate in the sacraments, though.
 
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